Almost Sureal
by Steph R
Summary: This is based on mainly Sonic Adventure 2, and the rest...you'll see for yourself. Sonic, Vector, Charmy they all belong to SEGA. Only ones that are mine are Lea, Slash, and other characters that will be named later. Enjoy! And comment if you want to!
1. Every night

_ She ran as fast as she could, not knowing where she was going. As she breathlessly passed the ancient forest, which had once been her special friend, the one in whom she could hide in, was replaced with the looming figures shrouded in darkness. It was no home to her not...She had no home now..._

"_I have to get away" she thought, beginning to panic, "...There has to be some place I can go...! I have to run...! I have to..." Deep in her thoughts, a limb caught her foot, causing her to plummet to the forest floor. She stayed lying on the floor……and slowly began to sob... "Mommy...! Daddy...! Help me, please...!" She remembered her mother's face… She had a soft serenity that she adored...Her father...He was a powerful fighter, but with the most gentle heart anyone had ever known. ...They were her family...her life...Now her life was over... But mommy wouldn't want her to give up. Neither would daddy... "I'll never give up...!" She declared. Suddenly, the sound of shouting and battle cries rang over the forest. They were coming._

_ She was running faster now, with such a speed she'd never known. She had to get away. She couldn't let them catch her, she couldn't be killed. It was getting louder now, almost deafening. They were gaining on her; she looked over her shoulder to see the bloodthirsty Echidnas smiling in rage at her. But this only made her run faster, try harder. She could almost imagine herself surviving this, growing up to be a strong, beautiful woman. Her dreams were crushed when she saw the dark wall of trees that hovered over her. She tried to claw her way through the forest, but to no avail. The Echidna's dark figures appeared in front of her, and a cold sweat began to run down her flushed cheeks, soaking into her white fur. "Heh...You've given us quite a run little girl..." the Echidna leader chuckled, "But now, it's time to end it!" "Noooooooooooooooo!"_

_

* * *

_

Lea awoke in a cold sweat, gasping for air. She slowly looked into space, trying to situate herself. She was inside in a circular room, all painted a light blue. She gently held onto the dark blue sheets that were tangled around her legs… She slowly looked around seeing her bookshelf, writing desk, dresser, and her end table. Everything was exactly the way she left it… Outside her window it was dark; she looked over to her clock, which read 12:30 A.M.

"Heh, seems like I'm ahead of schedule today..." She gave a pained laugh as she buried her head in her hands, chuckling at how foolish she was: how foolish this whole thing was. She had the same dream, was in same bed, in the same room, in the same house, that she had been for many years of her life. As she plopped her feet onto the bluish-black carpet, slowly trying to get herself to realize she wasn't six anymore, she was _sixteen!_ It had been _ten_ years since her parent's death; he should have been over this a long time ago... But she hadn't…… She mentally shook herself, and got ready to take a shower like she always did. She looked at the steam rising from the bath and thought; since the warm water seemed to relax her, and she seemed more disturbed by the dream than usual, it would be ok to take a longer one than usual. Usually it only took half an hour, but today she felt like taking an hour and a half.

As she got out of the shower, she frowned at herself. "_It doesn't matter now"_ She put on her pink v-neck tank and brown-green parachute pants. _"These dreams will probably go on for all your life...and there's nothing you can do about it..."_ "There's nothing you can do about it"...……….she didn't care much for that saying. In fact, she _hated_ that saying.

She slowly made her way down the stairs, almost forgetting to put on her portable-jetpack, and all the other stuff her brother gave her to lug around. Almost all of the inventions that Slash made, that actually worked, were made to "protect" her. She remembered the little inside joke that she and her brother had about the "plasma bubble." Slash had just made some new things for Lea to try out, and she chuckled, "Man, Slash! Grappling hooks, ray guns, smoke bombs, pepper spray? What are ya gonna do next, put me in a plastic bubble?" Lea began laughing uncontrollable, that is until Slash broke in,

"Does a plasma bubble count?" He had his finger directly above a little remote, and then pressed it.

"What?" In a split second, a huge bubble of blue energy formed around Lea. "Ha, ha, very funny. Now get me out of this stupid thing." Lea growled, growing more and more irritated by the second.

"Ok, ok, I'll let ya go." Slash chuckled, pressing the button on the remote again. Yep, that was Slash….He could make weapons and ammo out of anything, for almost _any _occasion. Heck, even the stupid jet-pack could probably kill someone if you really tried! The only thing that Slash hadn't tweaked were her combat boots, which she slipped comfortably on her feet as she stumbled down the stairs. Sometimes she wanted to smack him for being so darn protective, but he was all she had let now: she couldn't bare losing her big brother.

As she walked down the stairs, she saw Slash at the table, with a huge mug of coffee and a doughnut. As usual he was trying to balance his mug in his hand while munching on his doughnut. His muscle shirt and brown baggy pants where all covered in little crumbs brown crumbs, which he apparently didn't notice. (Or for the moment, didn't care…) Even his black finger-gloves had little doughnut crumbs stuck to them.

"Slash!" she yelled playfully, "How many times I gotta tell ya to use the table instead of trying to balance your breakfast in the air! (And have you ever heard of napkins?) Its there for a reason you know!"

"Hm? Aw, don't worry sis! I won't spill a-" the mug toppled over, shattering into a thousand pieces. "...drop..." He finished, trying not to slap himself the face. Not only was the floor dark brown, but so were his steal cleated, steal toed boots were bleached a darker brown. (So to Slash, that wasn't much of a catastrophe…)

"Ok, hold on..." Lea groaned, stomping off to get the broom. Grabbing the broom from beside the fridge, she began to wipe up the pieces. Then she shoed him out of the kitchen so she could mop the coffee off the floor. As Slash looked on, watching Lea mop up the tiled floor, he smiled sheepishly and gave a little "Sorry sis…" That was her brother: twenty years old with the maturity of a ten year old. It reminded her of once when Slash was making fun of Amy and Sonic going on an official "date." As she was scolding him, he declared;

"All _geniuses_ have a quark of some kind! Mine's just not acting my age!" With a wink, he was off tinkering in his part of the base. He always seemed to use that lab of his as a scape-goat, but she wasn't concerned as long as they got missions done...

"Okay!" Slash yelled, hopping out of his chair. "We got breakfast, now who's up for mission practice?"

"_For your information, **you** had breakfast so **you **should go to mission practice..."_ Although she would have said this in a heartbeat, Slash seemed so enthusiastic and happy, so she loosened up a bit.

"S-Sure," She stammered "who's the runner this time?"

"YOU ARE!" He laughed, running down the hall. She could have guessed…. She dragged along behind Slash, who was already in front of the light switch, looking at it intently.


	2. Training

Slash pushed the light switch inward, causing the key pad to appear, and then put in the password. Suddenly three panels lifted up, revealing a steal elevator, perfectly capable of fitting in ten average sized humans. Why Slash wanted to put in such a big elevator she had no idea, but it was nice and roomy, so Lea didn't mind. As the elevator began to ascend, she was able to see some of the soil and dirt that was visible through the tunnel. It was a heck of a long ride, almost two miles straight down, and she was bored, so she just started to stare off into space. Soon the underground base was visible, and Slash almost started hoping when he spotted the training area; he was apparently happy about not being the runner. "That's just because he can't run…" Lea thought, giving an exasperated sigh. Although Lea didn't much care whether she was the runner or not, after all she was the speed half of the duo, it was cool to be something else every so often… "Oh well," she thought "at least it's better than throwing bombs and crap around like a stupid robots… Hm…speaking of which, why didn't Slash use his robots for the obstacle courses….?

"Yo Lea, let's go!" She was pushed out of her thoughts by Slash's annoying voice. As they passed by Slash's lab, she glanced at a heap of robot parts and mechanisms. That was why: none of his robots really worked. At least the ones she was aware of…

"C'mon Lea, are you _trying _to keep me from beating you or what; time to train!" Lea growled, but gave no objection. Although Slash's showoffy-ness made training a bit tiring at times, Lea personally enjoyed training; solo or otherwise. When you had obstacles like a twenty foot drop, a lake, bombs, sparing, and even a wall of _fire, _it was kinda hard to get bored.

"Okaaaaay," Slash almost was singing, "so you want the easy whipping or hard?" He smirked, she _hated _when he was all cocky like that.

"Yeah I'm pretty sure that I can manage." Lea said, waving him off dismissingly. Why did he have to be stupid like that? She already had enough trouble even _getting_ through the training; let alone passing it with flying colors. "Oh well," she thought as she walked towards the towering metal doors. "At least I'm getting my exercise…" She laughed at herself sarcastically as the enormous steal doors flung open, revealing not only the huge arena of concrete and paved loops, turns, twists, obstacles, and sheer drops, but also her brother holding a huge bag of explosives and what have you.

"Let's begin." He mused, and with all the gusto he could muster, Slash started sprinting down the mile-long path that lay before them. Lea sighed; she hated giving Slash these stupid head starts… But he wasn't half as fast as she was…after all; he spent most of his time with his butt on a chair, staring at a computer. (Plus, he was wearing steal cleated boots, which didn't help. She was surprised his feet didn't catch on fire with all that steal on steal…) She laughed at the irony; despite all those stupid, bulgy muscles he had everywhere, it still didn't help him at all when it came to running…. She took a glance at her timer… _"Carp, I'm late!"_ Once again, in thought, she lost track of time. She sprinted as fast as she could down the semi-paved road. She was sprinting faster and faster, to the point she couldn't even see her own legs, which was pretty cool. It was the first loop; she hated the loops, but it was a way to get her balance.

She began to feel her stomach turn as she ran the fifteen foot loop; it wasn't a very nice feeling, but she had gotten used to it for the most part. First was the tallest, then they got smaller, and smaller until they were minuscule, but still big enough to make you sick. Now it was time for the downhill slopes, which she loved, and hated at the same time. Because it was here, that her idiotic brother did his little, "try to blow up the runner" routine.

And of course, right on schedule, Slash showed up with his little bag of goodies. Even more annoying, she couldn't outrun him because at this point he turned on his jet-shoes; enabling him to out maneuver her. As she gained speed, Slash hovered circles around her, throwing plasma grenades to normal dynamite. She leaned into the wind, and curved her torso so that she could be one step ahead of the bombs. One was right on her left; she jumped and narrowly missed it. Even though it probably wasn't "sportsman-like" both Lea and Slash would always take little shots at each other; getting in a punch in here, and a kick there. After a little bit of fun, Lea remembered there was gonna be a _huge _wall coming up and she knew she couldn't make it…. As she thought, the ten foot, concrete wall suddenly appeared, blocking off _all_ passage by…. But she could never make the mark in front of her…so….she just had to settle with the one _behind _her, she thought, glancing back at Slash. Slash looked at his bag to grab another bomb; now was her chance. Lea jumped, opening her arms so that she slowed extremely fast.

* * *

Slash was trying to find the perfect bomb to get Lea good.He searched through the bag while he flew on his jet shoes; it was pretty hard because at the speed they were going, the wind was almost ripping the bag out of his hands. He glanced over to Lea, to see how far up she was, and then suddenly there was a foot in his face! "GAAH!" Slash grunted as Lea kicked herself off his face. Slash, his mouth agape, witnessed Lea's white form go into the air, doing a few summersaults on the way, and actually going _over_ the wall! _"Way to Lee...! But that won't save you from me..."_ A dark smile came over Slash's face, as he shifted his eyes toward a metal panel in the wall. He pushed a button on the cuff of his finger glove, and entered a dark hallway._ "Oh hey, that rhymes!" _Slash laughed in his mind as he went through the dark corridor.

* * *

Lea was laughing so hard she could barley run. "_Man_ I wish I'd had a camera back there! Slash's expression was _hilarious_!" She thought triumphantly; she always had to climb over that stupid wall before, until now! She ran past the corridors of steal poles, dark tunnels, and ray guns that she easily dodged. Suddenly the road cut off almost ten feet away from her, showing a perfect straight edge. _Skreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! _She was trying to stop so hard that her feet felt like they were on fire! She was sure she'd fall! Then…slowly….silently…. she came to a halt.

"Phew…" She breathed, whipping some sweat off her brow. "That was close." She smiled, and casually walked toward the edge. She studied it as if it was some sort of amazing device she had never seen before. Then, leaning over the edge, gave a summersault and was plummeting toward the ground. Her heart began to race; it always did when she first started to plunge.

It was about twelve stories before she would reach the ground, so she decided to enjoy the feeling for a while. As she plummeted, her hair began to twist around violently. (She was lucky she had it in a pony-tail, otherwise it probably would have poked her eyes out.) She spread out her arms and legs once more, letting herself get carried by the wind; it felt like she was flying. Three fourths of the way down, she spotted her little "obstacles" and knew it was time to _really_ fly. She pressed a square that was on what looked like sheet metal on her shoulder, and suddenly it covered her entire upper body. The metal became sturdier, and then a pair of handles sprang out of the sides, while two jet boosters sprang out of the back. Leaning forward in a sort of Superman position, she grabbed onto the handles and then, bushing forward on them, the rockets ignited, and accelerated.

Fire began to spew from large cavities in the walls; she jerked the controls forward and narrowly escaped getting charred. Suddenly huge stone columns began to emerge, black the way, and then retreat to their holes. Lea shot forward as one began to appear, but then another came out faster and knocked her backwards. She spun rapidly around, but then steadying herself and regaining her composure, kept on forward. It took her about five minutes of aerial maneuvers before reaching the bottom of the "cliff," but her many training sessions made her almost a veteran at things like this. Upon landing, she was face to face with another huge, twelve foot steal door that swung open at her approach. This time, of the usual ring that held her brother's over-masculine figure, was replaced with darkness. Though she never trusted darkness, she knew that her brother would never put in something that could _really_ hurt her… Even with her small amount of self assurance, she stepped cautiously into the ill-lit room. Suddenly, thousand upon thousands of lights flashed on, almost blinding Lea in the process. It was a huge metal arena, _filled_ to the brim with….doors? "Well _this_ is new…" She laughed to herself.

A dark corridor began to open, then another…then another; she did _not _have a good feeling about this.


	3. A Few Familiar Faces

"Test time Lea." A voice called out form the darkness. Slash slowly walked forward into the light, holding an odd looking remote in his hand. "You think you can handle it?

Lea looked at him warily, then at the thousands of doors looming around her; she felt surrounded.

Slash held the remote in his hand, smirking triumphantly; and he hadn't even won yet! Lea was looking worriedly around her, as if she was about to back off and quit. Slash was waiting for it too, Lea could sense it. But instead of a plea for mercy, she simply smiled coolly and replied, "Let's go."

"Very well!" Slash yelled; his arm shooting up as he pressed the remote. With a deafening rumble, the _entire _room was flooded with robots and battle machines. Any and every style there was; Eggman's, Slash's, even a few scrap parts melded together and given a weapon. "Let's see her try and get through that…" As far as Slash was concerned, he had won. Lea had **never **beaten him before, and she sure as heck wasn't gonna do it now.

The robots started pouring out in millions, and Lea had _no _way to counter them. The first threw a punch at her; she ducked at round-house kicked it into three other robots. "Ok," she though "they're easy, but there are **way** too many of 'em to handle…" As she thought this, ten robots suddenly were on top of her. She was in the middle of a mosh, and there was no real way for her to escape. She felt their pinchers and prods stab her; the cool feel of metal was practically _all _around her now. She looked frantically around; she could see no light now, she guessed that maybe fifty plus robots were on her now. As she began to panic, a feeling of hope came into her. "Maybe…." She thought… her mind was wrapping around an idea that she'd never thought of before, and hopefully on that _Slash_ hadn't thought of either. She wretched her arms from the robots grasp, and pushed a glowing square on her finger gloves. She pushed it three times, causing the square to transform into a small sphere. She lifted her arms out, and suddenly she was inside the plasma bubble. Opening her arms wide, she expanded the bubble violently; flinging all the robots off of her, smashing them against the wall.

When she thought she was victorious, _twice_ the number of robots there were before were now standing before her. She rapidly expanded the shield, causing her arms to spread out even further. Even that wasn't enough! Even in the now ten foot shield around her, she was being bombarded with robots and explosions. She didn't know what to do! She couldn't expand the field anymore, and her arms were starting to give way from the huge sea of robots on top of her…. There was one chance……

She began to slowly crouch to the floor, causing the barrier that she had so skillfully put up to shrink. As she did, the robots began to crowd her even more! Only a few inches separated her and the robots that, if both she and Slash weren't careful, would kill her. She crouched lower and lower to the ground, now she was at the point of kneeling. Suddenly she felt huge surges of energy go through her body. _"Focus...**focus!**" _She yelled fiercely at herself. She was going to use not only the raw energy of the Chaos Emerald she had tucked away in her belt's pocket, but she was going to bubble as a medium. She could feel the power growing; her entire body ached from holding back such an enormous power. She couldn't hold it anymore; with all her energy, she let go.

* * *

Vector slammed again and again on the door of Lea and Slash's chimney-shaped house; there was still no answer. Although Vector was extremely even tempered for a crocodile, now even he was starting to get irritated at the total lack of communication going on here.

"VECTOR," An annoying little voice rang out "why isn't Ms. Lea and Slash answering?" Charmy was, as usual, flying around trying to occupy himself, and it wasn't working very well.

"They're probably busy training." A voice said, out of nowhere. "Oy…doesn't that guy _ever_ think about anything other than training?" Vector thought, getting more than a bit agitated.

"Naah, that's just what yoooooou do Espio! " The little bumble bee laughed; was that supposed to be some sorta insult? Both Vector and Espioput their hands over their faces, in total exasperation. How the heck could a kid be _that_ stupid? Vector thought about it, and changed his mind… No, Charmy wasn't _stupid_ per say….just…….

"Look at meeeeee! I'm a plane!" Charmy was swerving around erratically, as if he had just downed a pint of coffee and half a dozen pounds of sugar. "No", Vector thought "I'm pretty sure at that point Charmy would be passing through time and space." Vector put his hand on his head, "Whoa. I sounded like Slash for a sec there…." Vector thought of the idea of being like the spiky haired wolf, and shook his head. That was _not _a place he wanted to be.

* * *

Espio was defiantly _not _amused by all this banter. He was a **ninja **for crying out loud! Not a babysitter and defiantly **_not_** someone to be trifled with. Espio slowly revealed himself, mainly to show his total and complete aggravation at his two "partners."

While contemplating this, Espio's ears were suddenly filled with the sound of some sort of explosion. But it didn't sound like a normal explosion….if sounded…almost muffled… as if it were under the ground… He arched his head slightly toward the sound, looking at Vector and Charmy in worry; both of which were sharing the exact same expression.

"Wh-What was that...?" Charmy asked softly, his eyes widening in worry.

"It sounded like an explosion."

**_"EXPOSION? _**A-Are they ok? Are they gonna be alright? Oh my God, what if something happened to them Vector? What are we gonna do? What are we gonna-

"_Charmy, calm down,"_ Espio said slowly, trying his best to slow Charmy's rambling. "We don't know if that was a bad thing. Slash might be working on something and it just blew up on him…." (Again...)

"Still, it wouldn't be a bad idea to take a good look." Vector broke in.

"But how do we get in? It's locked."

With a fierce swing, Vector slammed his enormous tail against the door, causing it to shatter into a thousand pieces.

"C'mon fellas, let's go!" Vector said with a wink.

"Weeeeeeeeee!" Charmy began to sing and hum in-fluently.

Espio, completely dumb-stuck at the fact that Vector just _broke into_ someone else's house, was still staring at the door Vector plowed down even as Charmy and Vector entered the house. Even in the total awe that Espio was in, he was jolted out of it when Charmy yelled from the living room,

_"Espio!_ You coming or not?"

"Yeah Es move it or loose it!" He heard Vector snort.

Espio slapped his hand on his face; those two _really _amazed him sometimes…

* * *

Slash stumbled weakly over the wreckage of mecha-rubble and robot parts. Trying to re-gain his memory of what the heck had just happened… He held onto his head, it was pounding terribly, but he still managed to remember the previous events…

_Lea was had a mountain of robots on top of her, even though she had managed to push them away from her only a few seconds before. Slash was getting worried; he was about to go to the control panel and turn off the robots, when suddenly a bright light began to shine. It was coming from...**Lea?** Slash began to fly toward her, when a **huge **dome of light swept over the robots and Slash himself. He was blinded by the light; being jolted twenty feet away from the explosion. _

All he really could remember of the impact was the light...and Lea shouting as she released the energy she apparently had been storing while the robots were piling on her. "Lea……Lea!" Slash shouted in his mind, automatically panicking. He began to desperately search and scrape through all the rubble in the arena. She wasn't anywhere! Where was she? Was she ok? Was the energy too much for her to handle! He began to frantically run through the course, not caring whether he made all the marks, as long as he got there. Lea might be hurt! She might have pushed herself too hard! As he thought this, scrabbled over to the end-stretch of the race; it was gonna be easier now, all he had to do was run. Slash imagined seeing Lea face down on the floor, still trying to get finished. _"Please Lord let her be alright, God just let her be ok!"_ But as he made his way to the winner's circle, Lea was standing there, head held up high, huge smile, and on one of the many screens that adorned the beams of the ceilings, it read Lea is the Winner! Slash sighed; yeah, she was fine.

Lea was all smiles as the elevator began to ascend to the house. Slash was cool with that; she had obviously earned bragging rights for beating him… "Yeah, for the _first time...!" _He thought sarcastically... Slash noticed his heart was still beating rapidly because of his little "scare;" he could have kicked himself for worrying so much. Lea was fine, she was ok...But still….he couldn't help but worry for his baby sister.


	4. Alone at the End of the Day

Charmy was having lots of fun looking at all the neat stuff that Ms. Lea and Slash had at their house. They had a nice TV, a Gamecube, PS2, and all sorts of games to play with! He flew around if crazy little circles, before playing and quitting almost every game that they owned. Then he played around on the computer that they had downstairs; now he was bored. Charmy looked around for something to do, then spotted the couch; making himself nice and comfy on it.

"Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawn." He was getting really sleepy, even though he had only been there about five minutes. He nestled down onto the couch and felt his eyes get heavy. Then in a few minutes he was asleep.

Both Vector and Espio stared at Charmy who had played, been random, and crashed within a span of ten minutes.

"That's gotta be a new record." Vector chuckled. Espio didn't answer; he was still disappointed in both the boys for their breaking and entering of Lea's home. As he was about to make a shrewd comment about Vector and Charmy's behavior, both Lea and Slash emerged out of their "secret passageway" which held Slash's lab, among other things.

"Oh! Hi guys!" Lea said politely. Although she was obviously surprised by their even _being _there, she would never be rude enough to ask them why the heck they were at her house.

"Why the heck are you at our house?" Slash, on the other hand, was not. Lea gave Slash an irritated look, but that didn't seem to stop him from pressing right up to Vector's big snout.

"Listen pal!" Vector barked defensively "all we was lookin to do was get a few training sessions in before we head out on our vacation. We didn't mean no trouble!" Slash chuckled sarcastically and looked at the shattered pieces of wood on the floor.

"Our door would say otherwise." Espio looked cautiously at Vector; he was getting _really _steamed… if someone didn't do something soon there was gonna be another brawl…

**_"Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! What do you guys always have to fight like this?" _**Suddenly everyone's attention was on Charmy, who had been awoken by the shouts, and was now sitting on the ground, bursting into tears. Everyone was silent for a few moments, until Lea went over to Charmy and picked him up off the ground.

"Charmy's right," Lea said, holding the little six year old bee in her arms. "There's no reason for any of us to fight like this. You guys want a training session? Go down to the arena and train! You can do it together if you want to take a few punches at one another." She said with a wink. Slash and Vector looked at one another, and gave each other an apology smile, and handshake. Then in about three seconds, they were wrestling each other for the first place in the elevator.

"Oy…." Both Espio and Lea thought. Well, at least it was better than them trying to beat the crap out of one another in the living room….

* * *

Lea went into the kitchen to get a few drinks for Espio and Charmy who had decided to skip on the training; even Espio was game for starting his vacation a little early. She took out a pot and started to boil some water; then went into the cabinets to get a packet of hot chocolate and green tea. Charmy hoped around in his chair waiting for his hot coco, while Espio sat in the corner of the room, in his little meditation position. The hilarious thing was that he wasn't really meditating, he was taking a nap; despite all the pounding and mini-explosions under their feet, Espio didn't seem to stir.

"Ok boys, your drinks are done." Lea said, holding a hot cup in each hand. Charmy squealed cheerfully, taking the cup out of her hand. "Be careful Charmy, it's hot..."

"**_Youch! Hot, hot, hot, HOT!"_** Charmy yelped. Charmy, not taking any notice to Lea's advice, had gulped the entire mug down, giving his tongue what felt like 3rd degree burns.

_"Some _people actually know how to follow an instruction when given…" Espio sighed, half opening one of his eyes. Lea sighed, gave Charmy a piece of ice to suck on, and handed Espio his tea. "Thank you." Espio said, taking a few artful sips before taking his meditative position again.

* * *

About two hours went by; Lea played games and hung out with Charmy, while Espio enjoyed his corner and his tea. Although Espio usually wasn't so anti-social, and was the one that had to deal with Charmy's little antics: he was more than happy to leave Lea to do the "babysitting" for once. As soon as Charmy had his fill of fun, he crashed on the couch, snoring away.

Vector and Slash appeared out of the elevator, with more than a few bruises on themselves. When they're teammates looked at them, they both seemed to give the same goofy, arrogant smile.

"I beat the cap out of him!" Vector declared triumphantly.

"Beat the crap out of each other is more like it." Espio said, coming out of his corner. Vector laughed jovially; yep, he was back to his normal self.

"Heh, looks like the little guy's pretty conked out huh?" Vector chuckled, gesturing toward the sleeping bee on the couch.

"Believe me; he and I defiantly got some serious playtime." Lea said, with a smile. She loved hanging out with little Charmy, like she did all little kids. Vector smiled as he gently picked up the sleeping child, and carried him with the greatest care. This was a part of Vector that he rarely let anyone see; Vector was very nurturing and generous, but he preferred looking like a tough croc than a "sentimental slob' as he called it….

"Thank you for your hospitality, as always." Espio said with a grateful bow.

"See ya in a month." Vector said happily, but softly so not to wake Charmy from his little nap. As they left the house, Slash smiled widely and said, "I still beat the crap outta Vector…" Lea rolled her eyes as she put away all the stuff Charmy had played with; all of which was still sprawled out on the ground.

"Well, I think it's about time for me to hit the hay…" Slash said with a huge yawn. Lea looked over to the clock.

"It's only 6:30…" Lea said. Slash gave her a mischievous smile; oh right, she forgot. Usually going to bed was code for, "I'm making you a new invention and I don't want you to see it until the morning." So she nodded slightly and made her way up the stairs. She was cool with Slash working too; actually, this was around _her _usual bedtime… After all, she usually got up at around 2 o'clock in the morning because of her stupid nightmares... "Oh well," She thought as she changed into her PJ's. "Time for another restless night…" She sat on her bed and did her bedtime prayer, reading her Bible afterwards… As she put it back on her shelf, she slumped down on her bed; staring at the ceiling for what seemed like hours. She wondered what would happen if she never slept...would the dreams end? No, she couldn't go without sleep, it was physically impossible...She turned over, still in deep thought; what if the dreams stopped...? Many a night she would pray that God would take these dreams away...that someone…or something could just make her forget...But maybe it was for some greater purpose that she held onto these memories...no matter how painful they were... She rolled over again; she didn't really feel like pondering God's entire plan for her life. So she got up out of bed, turned out the light, and went under the covers; in a few moments she was asleep.


	5. A New Project

He was growing exceedingly impatient. It had been almost a year and a half since he'd made an attempt to obliterate Sonic, and make his "Eggman Empire" a reality. Searching through file, after file, he had succesfully dug through almost _every _secret weapon of the military, and still found nothing that interested him.

"Come _on _you idiotic hunk of junk!" He shouted, smashing his fists against the keyboard. He had one of the most high-tech, accurate computer terminals in the _world_, so why the heck couldn't he find **_something helpful? _**After a few moments of fuming, he returned to his search. Suddenly, a file caught his eye.

"Project Shadow..." Eggman read aloud "was created to be the 'World's Ultimate Life Form.' Sadly the project was abandoned after an accident that claimed the lives of almost half of the science team...and the military..." Eggman adjusted his caller uncomfortably as read the article. _"Claimed the lives of the scientists...**and **the military...?" Geez...this Project Shadow wasn't messing around was he...? _Eggman mentally shook himself and found where he left off.

"Blah, blah, blah...took the lives of the scientists including the Maria Robotnik, the grandaughter of world-renowned genius Professor Gerald Robotnik... Now-" He almost jumped out of his chair. " Wait, what? My cousin Maria and...**Professor Gerald Robotnik! **...**_Grandfather…..?_**" That was it; this was what he'd been searching for! Eggman did a search through every government terminal he could hack through, but all of them lead to the same thing: the project was abandoned.

"C'mon grandfather...you couldn't have given up that easily..." Eggman muttered; he was _sure _there was more to this than just a stupid piece of paper…. Suddenly a mini-file sprang out on his computer; it was in garbled letters that he couldn't make out, so he thought it might be corrupted. He gave it no regard, and closed it. But then it came up again, and again; each time closing it.

"Stupid pop-ups...!" Eggman grumbled. After the _twelfth _time, Eggman finally took a glance at it. But as he looked at it more closely,he realized that the small fractions weren't corrupted...they had an encryption puton them!

"Yes!" Eggman declared "I knew you had something up your sleeve grandpa!" He happy clacked his keyboard, breaking the inscription in a matter of seconds. "_Hm...wasn't that a little **too **easy...?"_ He dropped the subject once the _real_ documentation for Project Shadow came out. It was _huge_, almost twenty pages of info! But another thing that struck him as odd, was that there were no picture references of the "top secret weapon" anywhere. That didn't matter; he was sol. Eggman was going to release this ultimate weapon and unleash it on the world! …….Or at least the part that he felt like conquering.

"Mwuahahahahahah! World's Ultimate Life Form, here I come!" Eggman cackled triumphantly. He raised his arms high in the air, but let them slump back onto his lap. Giving out a groggy yawn, he looked down at the bottom of his computer that had a little digital clock. It was about midnight, but for some reason he was more tired than usual... Still, he had found the answer to destroying Sonic, so he thought he might gloat a little longer.

But in the middle of his gloating, a small CD came out of his hardrive. "Huh?" Eggman thought, instantly becoming wide awake. "I don't remember putting any discs in there..." He slowly took the disc out of the slot, but curiosity got the best of him, so he put it back into his hardrive.

He watched in amazement as page upon page of writing came on the screen; stating all the destructive force of "Shadow." It was his grandfather's diary, but for some odd reason all Gerald could talk about was what Shadow was capable of... That was it! Eggman could wait no longer; he pushed a switch on his computer that summoned his new "Egg Walker."

* * *

Eggman left the confines of his base, located in a (He wasn't sure whether it was really Egyptian…) pyramid. Strangely after the thing with Chaos, looking at all those ruins, and almost having to go back in time himself; Eggman had grown rather fond of ancient artifacts. Mainly the Mayans, Aztects, and sometimes the Egyptians; probably because they seemed to have the most past history with the Chaos Emeralds... 

All he was really conserned about was getting his hands on...whatever it was this "Project Shadow" was. Of coarse...getting there was half the battle...

(Ok...**_why_** did I give Eggman his own stinking chapter...? I have no idea, I just hope you enjoyed it...)


End file.
